The present invention relates to a gum adjusting and shaping device, and more particularly to a gum shaping device that advantageously creates space between abutment of implants and gum tissue for impression, so that an esthetic artificial tooth can be made easily with deep impression of abutment.
Ideal restoration is particularly important in today""s society to replace lost teeth. People feel uncomfortable when nerves in an empty tooth socket are shown, which look ugly. Moreover, the empty tooth socket has an adverse influence on clear articulation. To maintain conveniences in eating, and to maintain a pleasant appearance, it is necessary to mount an artificial tooth to fill up the empty tooth socket.
Conventionally, a gum adjusting and shaping device having a gum-healing cap is used in the process of making a tooth mold and producing and mounting a desired artificial tooth. FIGS. 1 to 9 illustrate in details the steps of mounting the conventional gum adjusting and shaping device for implanting an artificial tooth. In these steps, an artificial implant 4 having a head forming a screw cavity 41 and a body forming a threaded rod 42 are provided. A gum-healing cap 5 in the form of a truncated cone is Provided, which has a threaded rod 51 provided at a rear end thereof for screwing into the screw cavity 41 of the artificial implant 4. An abutment of implanted tooth 6 is Provided, which defines a hollow inner space and has front and rear portions in the form of truncated cones. A screw 61 is received in the inner space of the abutment of implanted tooth 6
First, the gum 2 surrounding the empty tooth socket of an extracted tooth 1 is incised to expose a part of a socket bone 3 above the empty tooth socket. A hole is drilled in the tooth socket bone 3 with a special drill for the artificial implant 4 to implant therein. The artificial implant 4 is implanted in the tooth socket bone 3, with the screw cavity 41 at its head located at an opening of the drilled hole to facilitate performance of subsequent steps. The gum 2 is then sutured, as shown in FIG. 1. After a period of time, the socket bone 3 will adapt itself to and unite with the implanted artificial implant 4. After the artificial implant 4 has united with the socket bone 3, the healed gum 2 is incised again to connect the gum-healing cap 5 to the previously implanted artificial implant 4 by screwing the threaded rod 51 at the rear end of the gum-healing cap 5 into the screw cavity 41 of the artificial implant 4, as shown in FIG. 2. The purpose of screwing the gum-healing cap 5 to the artificial implant 4 is to expand the gum 2 open so that the gum 2 is shaped into a substantially conic cavity. For this purpose, the gum-healing cap 5 must not be removed from the artificial implant 4 until at least one week later. After removal of the gum-healing cap 5 from the artificial implant 4, the abutment of implanted tooth 6 is immediately fixed to,the screw cavity 41 of the artificial implant 4 to substitute for the gum-healing cap 5, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.
After the screw 61 in the abutment of implanted tooth 6 is screwed into the screw cavity 41 of the artificial implant 4, an impression tray with material 7 is used to take an accurate contour of the empty tooth socket for making a tooth mold, as shown in FIG. 5. Before taking the accurate contour of the empty tooth socket, the inner space of the abutment of implanted tooth 6 must be filled with filler 62 to ensure that a desired artificial tooth 8 could be produced later to tightly fit on the abutment of implanted tooth 6. After removal of the impression tray with material 7 from the empty tooth socket, production of the desired artificial tooth 8 could be immediately started with a user-specified material. Since it takes a period of time to produce the desired artificial tooth 8, it is necessary to mount a temporary artificial tooth 9 on the abutments of implanted tooth 6 with bonding agent to substitute for the desired artificial tooth 8 during the waiting time, as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7. When the desired artificial tooth 8 is completed, the temporary artificial tooth 9 is removed from the abutment of implanted tooth 6 and the desired artificial tooth 8 is connected to the abutment of implanted tooth 6 by means of bonding agent, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9.
The above-described steps of mounting a conventional gum adjusting and shaping device for implanting an artificial tooth have the following disadvantages:
1. The gum-healing cap 5 is connected to the artificial implant 4 by screwing the threaded rod 51 into the screw cavity 41, so that the incised gum 2 is shaped around the gum-healing cap 5 during the process of healing. When the incised gum 2 is healed, the gum-healing cap 5 is removed from the empty tooth socket and the abutment of implanted tooth 6 is immediatly mounted. Since the gum 2 will automatically collapse within one or two minutes, it is difficult to keep the gum 2 in the shape obtained from the gum-healing cap 5.
2. Since the gum-healing cap 5 forms only a considerably small cavity at the gum 2, it is not easy for the impression tray with material 7 to fully reach a root portion of the abutment of implanted tooth 6. That is, the temporary artificial tooth 9 and the desired final artificial tooth 8 produced based on the impression tray with material 7 are slightly shorter than a length of the extracted tooth 1. Thus, the desired artificial tooth 8 will mismatch with other neighboring teeth 1 after it is implanted in the empty tooth socket and looks ugly.
3. The gum-healing cap 5 is precision made of an alloy and therefore has a high manufacturing cost.
4. The gum-healing cap 5 is utilized to create space in and shape the gum 2 into a desired configuration. For this purpose, the gum-healing cap 5 must be mounted in the empty tooth socket for a prolonged time to obtain a shaped gum 2. This will inevitably extend the time to carry out the steps of implanting the artificial tooth 8.
It is therefore an object of the inventor to develop an improved gum adjusting and shaping device to facilitate the expansion and shaping of gum and the subsequent formation of accurate tooth mold and desired artificial tooth.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a gum adjusting and shaping device that facilitates the expansion and shaping of gum around an extracted tooth and the subsequent formation of accurate tooth mold and desired artificial tooth based on the well-shaped gum.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a gum adjusting and shaping device that omits the conventional gum-healing cap to reduce the time needed to carry out the implantation of an artificial tooth.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a gum adjusting and shaping device that may be easily manufactured at reduced cost and clinical time.
To achieve the above and other objects, the gum adjusting and shaping device of the present invention mainly includes an outer die, an abutment of implanted tooth detachably put in the outer die, and a cap screw received in the abutment of implanted tooth for fixing the latter and the outer die to an artificial implant previously implanted in the tooth socket bone. The outer die is a cylindrical member having a rear end facing the socket bone in the form of a truncated cone and can therefore advantageously expand the gum surrounding an empty tooth socket to where an artificial tooth is to be mounted. The expanded gum allows subsequent formation of a tooth mold deeply reaching the root of the abutment of implanted tooth to produce a desired artificial tooth completely matching with neighboring teeth.